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Blade II
| running time = 117 min. | country = USA | language = English | budget = $54,000,000 IMDB; Blade II (2002) | gross revenue = $82,348,319 (US) $155,010,032 (Worldwide) Box Office Mojo; Blade II (2002) | preceded by = Blade (1998) | followed by = Blade: Trinity (2004) }} Blade II is an American action film with elements of supernatural horror. It was directed by Guillermo del Toro and released theatrically in the United States on March 22nd, 2002. Blade II is the sequel to the 1998 film Blade starring Wesley Snipes as the titular antihero Eric "Blade" Brooks". It was succeeded by the 2004 sequel Blade: Trinity. Plot The Reapers Two years have passed since Blade's encounter with Deacon Frost and he has been keeping himself busy in the hunt for Whistler. He has been sweeping across Russia and eastern Europe searching for his old friend and mentor, enlisting the aid of a young man named Scud to design him a new line of gadgetry and weaponry. In the first scene of the film, Blade fights his way through a large gang of vampires, leaving one of their number alive yet telling him he'll be back for him. Finding Whistler locked in a tank of blood by a cruel gang of vampires who were keeping the old man alive for purposes of torture. Blade rescues him and brings him to Prague. Meanwhile, a crisis has arisen in the vampire community. What seems to be a more developed strain of vampirism (dubbed the "Reaper virus") is sweeping through their ranks, giving its carriers fearsome new characteristics. The original carrier of the strain seems to be Jared Nomak, a one-time vampire who appears to have mutated. Far stronger than common vampires, the Reapers have three-way jaws, leech-like suckers and un-stakable hearts encased in a thick layer of bone, making them invulnerable to any weapon barring sunlight. In order to combat the virus, the vampire elder/overlord Eli Damaskinos and his lawyer Karel Counan send their minions Asad and Nyssa (who is Damaskinos' daughter) to find and strike an uneasy treaty with Blade, proving to him that the Reapers are the greater evil and once they finish the vampire population, they will doubtlessly descend on humankind. Whilst Blade may hate vampires, the Reapers are far more dangerous and neither side can attack them without uniting first. The Bloodpack To this end, Blade teams up with the The Bloodpack, a group of vampire warriors and assassins who were originally assembled to kill Blade. In order to obtain some measure of control over the group, Blade singles out Reinhardt, one of the group's more primary members, and installs a remotely-activated explosive device in the back of his head. Setting their mutual hatred aside, Blade leads the Bloodpack in the fight against the Reapers and the investigation into their origins. During this time, Blade forms something of an intimate relationship with Nyssa, the daughter of Damaskinos and member of the Bloodpack. After a climactic battle against numerous Reapers in their hive in the sewers, Blade is apprehended by Damaskinos' forces, along with Whistler and Scud. As it turns out, the Reaper strain is not a virus at all, but rather a genetic experiment gone wrong. In his efforts to create a day-walking vampire race, Damaskinos had numerous experiments performed on Nomak, who is in fact his estranged son. He remarks that Nomak was the first carrier of the strain but ultimately flawed, seeing as he was vulnerable to daylight, as were all the other carriers whom he'd infected. Damaskinos then reveals another horrible truth—he has been creating many more Reapers, all of them incubated in the form of a fetus. All they require now is Blade's biological make-up and in order to extract this, Damaskinos plans to have Blade killed and dissected. Nomak During his captivity, Blade attempts to activate the pre-placed explosive in Reinhardt's skull, at which point Scud reveals the bomb (which he himself had crafted) was never designed to go off. He himself is in fact one of Damaskinos' human servants (i.e. a familiar) and planned to side with the vampires rather than fighting against them. However, Blade has a trump card - he has always known of Scud's servitude to Damaskinos, and his backhanded double dealing. Activating a second switch on his remote, Blade kills the unfortunate Scud, who unluckily happened to be holding the bomb at the time. Blade fights his way through Damaskinos' henchmen, and heads towards the lead vampire himself. Meanwhile, a vengeful Nomak has entered Damaskinos' stronghold, seeking revenge on the father who mutilated him and turned him into the first Reaper. Just before he can escape, Damaskinos is betrayed by Nyssa (who became disillusioned with her father's extreme methods) and killed by Nomak. In order to "complete the circle", Nomak also bites Nyssa and then makes to leave, whereupon he is confronted by Blade. After a very physical fight scene, Blade finds the weak spot in Nomak's physical defenses and jams his sword beneath his arm, bypassing the bone shield of his heart. With Nomak dead, Blade then carries a weak, dying Nyssa outside for the sunrise, where she disintegrates in his arms. In the film's somewhat comical final scene, the vampire Rush left to live in the opening scene is in a London, preparing to make use of one of the booths. However, as soon as the curtains open, he is shocked to find Blade on the other side of the glass, who casually remarks "You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you?", and rams his sword into his skull. Cast Notes & Trivia * The tagline to this film is, "One man is still the cutting edge". * Production on Blade II began on March 12th, 2001. Principal photography was completed on July 2nd. The majority of the film was shot on location in Prague in the Czech Republic. Other scenes were filmed in London, England, New York City, New York and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. IMDB; Blade II (2002); BusinessIMDB; Blade II (2002); Locations * Blade II closed out of theaters on May 30th, 2002. Box Office Mojo; Blade II (2002) * Blade II was released to DVD under New Line's "Platinum Series" format on September 3rd, 2002. The Platinum edition is a two-disc collection. The film was released on Blu-ray on August 4th, 2009. It was also included as the second disc in the Blade Trilogy DVD boxset as well as the Blade/Blade II double feature set. Amazon.com; Blade II (2002); DVDAmazon.com; Blade II (2002); Blu-ray * Other films directed by Guillermo del Toro include Cronos, Mimic and The Devil's Backbone. See also External Links * Blade II at MDP * * Blade II at Wikipedia * Blade II at Metacritic * Blade II at Marvel.com * Blade II at AllRovi.com * Blade II at Box Office Mojo * Blade II at Horrormovies.org * Blade II at Rotten Tomatoes * Blade II at the Marvel Movies Wiki References ---- Category:2002 films Category:2nd installments Category:Marvel Enterprises Category:New Line Cinema Category:Horror Film List Category:Guillermo del Toro Category:Ron Perlman Category:Paul Kasey Category:Pete Lee-Wilson Category:Films with plot summaries